Feeling
GOOD
Together The Secret of Making Troubled Relationships Work
David D. Burns, MD
BROADWAY BOOKS | NEW YORK
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The ideas and techniques in this book are not intended as a substitute for consultation or treatment with a qualified mental health professional. The names and identities of the people in this book have been disguised extensively, and any resemblance to any person, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Copyright © 2008 by David Burns All Rights Reserved Published in the United States by Broadway Books, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York. www.crownpublishing.com BROADWAY BOOKS and the Broadway Books colophon are trademarks of Random House, Inc. Originally published in hardcover in the United States by Broadway Books, in 2008. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Burns, David D. Feeling good together : the secret of making troubled relationships work / David D. Burns. 1. Interpersonal conflict. 2. Conflict (Psychology). 3. Interpersonal relations. 4. Cognitive therapy. I. Title. BF637.I48B87 2008 158.2—dc22 2008012209 ISBN 978-0-7679-2082-7 Printed in the United States of America Design by Michael Collier 1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2 First Paperback Edition
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To purchase a copy of
Feeling Good Together
visit one of these online retailers:
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Contents
Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
vii ix
Part One: Why Can’t We All Just Get Along? Chapter 1 What the Experts Say . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Chapter 2 The Dark Side of Human Nature . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 Chapter 3 Why We Secretly Love to Hate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23 Chapter 4 Three Ideas That Can Change Your Life. . . . . . 31
Part Two: Diagnosing Your Relationship Chapter 5 How Good Is Your Relationship?
The Relationship Satisfaction Test . . . . . . . . . . .
41
Chapter 6 What Do You REALLY Want? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47 Chapter 7 The Price of Intimacy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51 Chapter 8 The Relationship Journal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65 Chapter 9 Good Communication vs.
Bad Communication . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
70
Chapter 10 How We Control Other People . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80 Chapter 11 Three Troubled Couples . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86
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CONTENTS
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Part Three: How to Develop Loving Relationships with the People You Care About Chapter 12 The Five Secrets of Effective
Communication . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
95
Chapter 13 The Disarming Technique . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100 Chapter 14 Thought and Feeling Empathy. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115 Chapter 15 Inquiry: “Did I Get That Right?” . . . . . . . . . . . 128 Chapter 16 “I Feel” Statements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134 Chapter 17 Stroking: “I—It” vs. “I—Thou” Relationships . . . . 140 Chapter 18 Putting It All Together: Solutions
to Common Relationship Problems . . . . . . . . .
150
Part Four: Making the Five Secrets Work for You Chapter 19 Mastering the Five Secrets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177 Chapter 20 Using the Five Secrets in Real Time:
The Intimacy Exercise . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
180
Chapter 21 Intimacy Training for Couples:
The One-Minute Drill . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
186
Part Five: Common Traps—and How to Avoid Them Chapter 22 “Help! The Five Secrets Didn’t Work!” . . . . . . 193 Chapter 23 Helping and Problem Solving . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 203 Chapter 24 Hiding Your Head in the Sand:
Conflict Phobia and Anger Phobia . . . . . . . . . .
209
Chapter 25 Apologizing: “Can’t I Just Say, ‘I’m Sorry’?” . . . 217 Chapter 26 Submissiveness: “I Must Please You” . . . . . . . . 221 Chapter 27 Resistance Revisited: “Why Should I Have
to Do All the Work?”. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
232
Part Six: Advanced Techniques Chapter 28 Changing the Focus: Is There an Elephant
in the Room? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Chapter 29 Positive Reframing: Opening the Door to Intimacy—and Success . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Chapter 30 Multiple- Choice Empathy: How to Talk to Someone Who Refuses to Talk to You . . . . Appendix: Your Intimacy Toolkit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
237
243
251 257 267
CONTENTS
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Introduction
T
roubled relationships hurt. Most of us base our feelings of selfworth, at least in part, on our relationships with other people. It’s no fun to argue or fight with someone you care about. Even a feud with someone you don’t care about can eat away at you and rob you of energy and joy. If you’re not getting along with someone, I’ve got some good news for you: I can show you how to develop a far more rewarding relationship with that person. It makes no difference whether the person you’ve been battling is your spouse, sibling, parent, neighbor, or friend, or even a complete stranger. No matter who it is, I can show you how to transform feelings of frustration and resentment into warmth and trust, and it can happen much faster than you think. In fact, sometimes it only takes a few minutes. However, it will require some hard work on your part, and you may have to look at some things about yourself that you didn’t want to see. The path to intimacy is nearly always painful. If you can muster up some courage and humility, and you’re willing to roll up your sleeves and do the work, I can show you something truly amazing— something that will change your life. David D. Burns, MD Adjunct Clinical Professor Emeritus, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Stanford University School of Medicine INTRODUCTION
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Part One Why Can’t We All Just Get Along?
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Chapter 1
What the Experts Say
W
e all want friendly, rewarding relationships with other people, but we often end up with the exact opposite—hostility, bitterness, and distrust. Why is this? Why can’t we all just get along? There are two competing theories. Most experts endorse the deficit theory. According to this theory, we can’t get along because we don’t know how. In other words, we fight because we lack the skills we need to solve the problems in our relationships. When we were growing up, we learned reading, writing, and arithmetic, but there weren’t any classes on how to communicate or solve relationship problems. Other experts believe that we can’t get along because we don’t really want to. This is called the motivational theory. In other words, we fight because we lack the motivation to get close to the people we’re at odds with. We end up embroiled in hostility and conflict because the battle is rewarding.
The Deficit Theory Most mental health professionals, including clinicians and researchers, endorse the deficit theory. They’re convinced that we wage war simply because we don’t know how to make love. We FEELING GOOD TOGETHER
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desperately want loving, satisfying relationships but lack the skills we need to develop them. Of course, different experts have different ideas about what the most important interpersonal skill deficits are. Behavior therapists, for example, believe that our problems with getting along result from a lack of communication and problem-solving skills. So when someone criticizes us, we may get defensive when we should be listening. We may pout and put the other person down instead of sharing our feelings openly, or we may resort to nagging and coercion in order to get our way. We don’t use systematic negotiation or problem-solving skills, so the tensions escalate. A related theory attributes relationship conflict to the idea that men and women are inherently different. This theory was popularized by Deborah Tannen in her bestselling book You Just Don’t Understand: Women and Men in Conversation and by John Gray in his bestselling book Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus. These authors argue that men and women can’t get along because they use language so differently. The idea is that women use language to express feelings, whereas men use language to solve problems. So when a woman tells her husband that she’s upset, he may automatically try to help her with the problem that’s bugging her because that’s how his brain is wired. But she simply wants him to listen and acknowledge how she feels, so she gets more upset when he tries to “help” her. They both end up feeling frustrated and misunderstood. You may have observed this pattern in yourself and someone you’re not getting along with, such as your spouse. Cognitive therapists have a different idea about the deficits that lead to relationship problems. They emphasize that all of our feelings result from our thoughts and attitudes, or cognitions. In other words, the things other people do—like being critical or rudely cutting in front of us in traffic—don’t actually upset us. Instead, we get upset because of the way we think about these events. This theory may resonate with your personal experience. When you’re mad at someone, you may have noticed that your mind is flooded with negative thoughts. You tell yourself, “He’s such a jerk! He only cares about himself. He shouldn’t be like that. What a loser!” When you feel upset, these negative thoughts seem over4
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whelmingly valid, but they actually contain a variety of thinking errors, or cognitive distortions, listed on pages 6–7. One of the most interesting things about the cognitive theory is the idea that anger and interpersonal conflict ultimately result from a mental con. In other words, you’re telling yourself things that aren’t entirely true when you’re fighting with someone. However, you don’t notice that you’re fooling yourself because the distorted thoughts act as self-fulfilling prophecies, so they seem completely valid. For example, if you tell yourself that the person you’re annoyed with is a jerk, you’ll treat him like a jerk. As a result, he’ll get angry and start acting like a jerk. Then you’ll tell yourself that you were right all along and that he really is a jerk. Cognitive therapy is based on the idea that when you change the way you think, you can change the way you feel and behave. In other words, if we can learn to think about other people in a more positive and realistic way, it will be far easier to resolve conflicts and develop rewarding personal and professional relationships. This theory sounds great on paper, but it’s not that easy to change the thinking patterns that trigger anger and conflict. That’s because there’s a side of us that clings to these distortions. It can feel good to look down on someone we’re angry or annoyed with. It gives us a feeling of moral superiority. We just don’t want to see that we’re distorting our view of that person. Some experts claim that the most important deficit that leads to relationship problems is a lack of self-esteem. In other words, if you don’t love and respect yourself, you’ll have a hard time loving anyone else because you’ll always be trying to get something from the other person that you can only give yourself. This theory has been popular in our schools. The idea is that if we help children develop greater self-esteem when they’re growing up, they’ll be able to develop warm, trusting relationships with others and won’t be so attracted to violence, crime, and gang membership as they get older. Other experts believe that relationship distress results from a different kind of deficit called relationship burnout. You may have noticed that when you aren’t getting along with someone, the negativity nearly always escalates over time. You and your spouse may criticize each other more and more and stop doing all the fun FEELING GOOD TOGETHER
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The Ten Distortions That Trigger Conflict Distortion
Description
Example
1.
All-or-Nothing Thinking
You look at the conflict, or the person you’re not getting along with, in absolute, black-and-white categories. Shades of gray do not exist.
You tell yourself that the person you’re mad at is a complete zero with no redeeming features. Or if your relationship breaks up, you may think that it was a total failure.
2.
Overgeneralization
You view the current problem as a never-ending pattern of frustration, conflict, and defeat.
You tell yourself, “She’ll always be like that.”
3.
Mental Filter
You catalog the other person’s faults, dwell on all the negative things he or she has ever done or said to you, and filter out or ignore all the other person’s good qualities.
You tell your spouse, “This is the tenth time I’ve told you to carry out the trash.” Or, “How many times do I have to remind you not to leave your dirty socks on the floor!?”
4.
Discounting the Positive
You insist that the other person’s good qualities or actions don’t count.
If someone you’re fighting with does something positive, you tell yourself that she’s trying to manipulate you.
5.
Jumping to Conclusions
You jump to conclusions that may not be warranted by the facts. There are three common patterns: Mind-Reading. You assume that you know how the other person thinks and feels about you.
You tell yourself that a friend is totally selfcentered and only wants to use you.
Reverse Mind-Reading. You You tell your spouse, “You tell yourself that the other should have known how I person should know what was feeling!” you want and how you feel without your having to tell him or her. Fortune-Telling. You tell yourself that the situation is hopeless and that the other person will continue to treat you in a shabby way, no matter what.
You tell yourself that the person you’re not getting along with will never change.
things you did when you first met and began to date. Pretty soon, your marriage becomes a source of constant stress, frustration, and loneliness, and all the joy and caring you once experienced has disappeared. At this point, separation and divorce begin to seem like highly desirable alternatives. Therapists who endorse the burnout theory will encourage you 6
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Distortion
Description
Example
6.
Magnification and Minimization
You blow the other person’s faults way out of proportion and shrink the importance of his or her positive qualities.
During an argument, you may blurt out, “I can’t believe how stupid you are!”
7.
Emotional Reasoning
You reason from how you feel, or assume that your feelings reflect the way things really are.
You feel like the other person is a loser and conclude that he really is a loser.
8.
Should Statements
You criticize yourself or other people with shoulds, shouldn’ts, oughts, musts, and have tos. There are two common patterns: Other-Directed Shoulds. You tell yourself that other people shouldn’t feel and act the way they do, and that they should be the way you expect them to be.
“You’ve got no right to feel that way!” Or, “You shouldn’t say that. It’s unfair!”
Self-Directed Shoulds. You tell yourself that you shouldn’t have made that mistake or shouldn’t feel the way you do. 9.
10.
Labeling
You label the other person as a “jerk” or worse. You see his or her entire essence as negative, with no redeeming features.
“She’s such a bitch!” Or, “He’s an asshole!”
Blame
Instead of pinpointing the cause of a problem, you assign blame. There are two patterns: Other-Blame. You blame the other person and deny your own role in the problem.
You tell your spouse, “It’s all your fault!” Then you get angry, frustrated, and resentful.
Self-Blame. You feel guilty and worthless because you blame yourself for the problem, even if it isn’t entirely your fault.
You tell yourself, “It’s all my fault!” Then you use all your energy beating up on yourself instead of finding out how the other person is feeling and trying to solve the problem.
and your partner to accentuate the positive. For example, you could schedule more fun, rewarding activities together so you can begin to enjoy each other’s company again. You might also do several loving, thoughtful things for each other every day, such as calling your partner from work just to say hello, or bringing your partner a cup of coffee in the morning to show you really care. Many therapists believe that relationship problems ultimately FEELING GOOD TOGETHER
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result from a lack of trust and the fear of vulnerability. Let’s say that you’re ticked off because of something that a colleague or family member said to you. On the surface, you’re angry, but underneath the anger, you feel hurt and put down. You’re reluctant to let the other person know that you feel hurt because you’re afraid of looking weak or foolish. Instead, you lash out, get defensive, and try to put the other person down. Although the tension escalates, your anger protects you because you don’t have to make yourself vulnerable or risk rejection. In other words, the basic deficit is a lack of trust—we fight because of our fears of intimacy. Therapists who endorse this theory will encourage you to accept and share the hurt and tender feelings that are hiding underneath all the anger, hostility, and tension. Psychoanalytic and psychodynamic therapists believe that all of these interpersonal deficits and problems with loving each other ultimately stem from painful experiences and wounds we endured when we were growing up. The idea is that if you grew up in a dysfunctional family, you may subconsciously re-create the same painful patterns over and over as an adult. For example, if your father constantly criticized you and put you down, you may have felt like you were never quite good enough to earn his love. As an adult, you may be attracted to men who are equally critical of you because you feel like your role in a loving relationship is to be put down by someone who’s powerful and judgmental, and you may still be desperately trying to get the love you never got from your father. When I first began treating people with relationship problems, I believed all of these deficit theories, so I naturally tried to help my patients correct the deficits that were causing their conflicts. I enthusiastically taught troubled couples how to communicate more skillfully, how to solve their problems more systematically, and how to treat each other in a more loving way. I also taught them how to boost their self-esteem and modify the distorted thoughts and self-defeating behavior patterns that triggered all the anger and resentment. Sometimes we analyzed the past to try to trace the origins of these patterns.
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I was surprised to discover that none of these techniques worked very well. It wasn’t that they weren’t ever effective—individuals who learned to listen, shared their feelings more openly, and treated others with greater love and respect often experienced immediate and dramatic improvements in their relationships with other people. But these individuals were few and far between. Most of the people who complained about their relationships with other people didn’t actually seem motivated to use any of these techniques. In fact, many of them didn’t seem interested in doing anything whatsoever to develop more loving, satisfying relationships with the people they were at odds with. They claimed that they sincerely wanted a more loving and satisfying relationship, but what they really meant was, “I want you to agree that my wife (or husband) is a loser.” These experiences were quite different from my experiences treating people who were suffering from depression and anxiety. They were also plagued by distorted negative thoughts that constantly flowed across their minds, such as, “I’m no good. I’m such a loser. What’s wrong with me? I’ll never get better.” When I showed them how to challenge and dispute their self-critical thoughts, the feelings of depression and anxiety disappeared and they were thrilled. But when I tried to help individuals who were angry and having trouble getting along with others, it was a different kettle of fish entirely. They didn’t seem interested in changing the way they thought about, communicated with, or treated the person they weren’t getting along with. They seemed far more interested in bashing each other’s heads in! At first, this came as a shock, and I was confused. Before long, I began to question the so-called deficit theories, and my understanding of the causes of conflict took a sudden turn in an unexpected direction.
“Why Should I Have to Change?!” The following is typical of the cases that began to shift my thinking. Mickey was a forty-five-year-old San Francisco businessman
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who was referred to me by a colleague for the treatment of depression. Mickey had been treated with every known antidepressant, but none of them had made a dent in his mood. I took Mickey off his medications, because they obviously weren’t working, and used cognitive therapy techniques instead. Within a few weeks, his depression disappeared. I thought that he might be done with therapy, because he seemed to be free of symptoms. To my surprise, Mickey asked if he could keep coming to see me “for growth purposes.” I said I’d be happy to continue working with him, but I needed to know what else he wanted help with. Mickey explained that he was dissatisfied with his marriage and had a long list of complaints about his wife, Margie. He said that he’d lost all respect for her because: • She wasn’t his equal intellectually and never had anything interesting to say. • She never read anything challenging. Instead, she wasted time reading fashion magazines and trashy newspapers like the National Enquirer. • She wasn’t affectionate and was never in the mood for sex. • She didn’t seem to appreciate all his hard work to earn a good living for their family. • She constantly nagged and criticized him. • She never seemed happy to see him when he came home from the office. • She rarely cooked his favorite foods for dinner. • When she was upset, she got back at him indirectly by charging overpriced jewelry and clothing behind his back. Then he’d get socked with a huge credit card bill at the end of the month. • They constantly argued about their twin daughters, who were in the sixth grade. Mickey was so annoyed that he’d kept a journal documenting all of Margie’s faults for the past fifteen years. Each day, he’d record all the things she’d said or done that had frustrated him. He 10
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started bringing the journal to his therapy sessions so he could read lengthy excerpts out loud, giving me blow-by-blow accounts of this or that argument. For example, eleven years earlier, while he and Margie were driving to Big Sur, they’d had an argument about whether to keep the car windows open or use the air-conditioning. While he was reading his account of the argument, Mickey would look up from his journal every now and then and mutter, “Isn’t that terrible?” or “Don’t I deserve better?” or “Can you believe she’d say something as ridiculous as that?” During our sessions, Mickey seemed perfectly content just to read from his journal and tell me about all of Margie’s shortcomings, but after several weeks of listening, I began to wonder where the therapy was going. What were we trying to accomplish? I pointed out that Mickey had three options: • If he was unhappy about his marriage, and felt that things were hopeless, he might want to consider a trial separation or even file for divorce. • If he still loved Margie and wanted to make his marriage better, we could try couples therapy. • He could maintain the status quo and make sure that nothing changed. Mickey definitely wasn’t interested in the first option. Separation was out of the question. He explained that he felt obligated to live at home until their daughters had graduated from high school. He didn’t trust Margie’s mothering skills and felt that the girls needed to have their father at home until they were safely off to college. Mickey also rejected the second option. He said that he definitely wasn’t interested in marital therapy because he was convinced that Margie could never change. In addition, he didn’t see any reason why he should have to change, given how poorly she’d treated him over the years. Mickey seemed committed to the third option—maintaining the status quo. It struck me as odd that someone would complain so bitterly about his marriage and still choose to maintain the staFEELING GOOD TOGETHER
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tus quo. However, this choice is common. In fact, of the three options I described—leaving the relationship, working to make the relationship better, or making sure that nothing changes—the third option is by far the most popular. I told Mickey that I wanted him to do a thought experiment. I said to imagine that we could wave a magic wand and make all his problems vanish in the blink of an eye. Suddenly, Margie has become the woman of his dreams. She’s loving, thoughtful, sexy, and admiring. Every evening when he comes home from work, she greets him with a smile and a kiss, asks about his day, and has a wonderful dinner waiting for him. She’s also a super mother and brags about what a great father and husband he is whenever they’re out with friends. One day, a member of the local Mafia approaches Mickey with an unusual business proposal. He tells Mickey that he and his associates will give Mickey $50,000. All he has to do is to turn his wonderful, loving wife into a nagging, whiny, hostile bitch within one month. If Mickey succeeds, they’ll give him the money. But if he fails, they’ll put out a contract on his life and give the $50,000 to a hit man who will break Mickey’s kneecaps and put a bullet through his head. I told Mickey that between now and our next session, I wanted him to list at least five things he could do during that month to ruin his marriage and save his life. Mickey seemed excited about the assignment and promised to bring his list to the next session. The following week, Mickey enthusiastically read the list he’d prepared. He explained: First, I could stop at a bar on the way home from work every night and have several drinks. If I came home drunk and smelling of alcohol, it would really upset Margie. She hates alcohol because her father was an alcoholic who got violent and ugly whenever he was drunk. If Margie protested that there was alcohol on my breath, I could just pour myself another drink right in front of her and tell her she was being uptight.
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Second, I could have affairs with women when I’m traveling on business trips around the country. I could have a girlfriend in Denver, a girlfriend in Cleveland, and another in Nashville. Then I could come home with lipstick on my collar or leave the stubs of show tickets on the dresser so Margie would discover them and catch on that I was having affairs behind her back. That would devastate her. Third, Margie feels inferior because she never finished college. When we’re out with friends, she always comments on current events and tries to sound intelligent. When she tries to make conversation, I could make sarcastic comments and point out that she gets her information from real scholarly sources like the National Enquirer. That would humiliate her in front of our friends. Fourth, whenever Margie tries to discipline our daughters, I could sabotage her by saying, “Don’t listen to your mother. You girls can do whatever you want.” Finally, I could come home late without calling to let her know I was delayed. That would definitely make her feel rejected and upset. I asked Mickey if he thought these activities would be enough to ruin his marriage and save his life. He replied, “Oh, absolutely! Any one of them would be enough. I’m sure of it!” Then I asked Mickey how many of these things he was already doing. His chest puffed up with pride and he exclaimed, “All of them, Doctor!” So here’s a man who’s convinced that he’s the victim of a bad marriage. He feels sorry for himself and tells himself that he’s stuck with a cold, unloving wife, and he’s been documenting all the things that she’s been doing wrong for the past fifteen years, almost like an attorney preparing a case for court. He blames her for their problems and his own unhappiness. But he’s been knowingly treating his wife in a shabby way and intentionally doing things that are certain to demoralize her and ruin their marriage the entire time that he’s been complaining about her.
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What are we to make of a man like Mickey? It would be easy to put him down, claiming that he’s a rare case of stubbornness or ignorance. But far from being an isolated example, Mickey was actually fairly typical of what I was seeing in my office every day. Though many individuals and couples came in complaining of frustration in their relationships with other people, very few of them seemed ready, willing, or able to do anything about it. This resistance to change had nothing to do with gender. Men and women were equally likely to protest and say, “Why should I have to change? It’s all his (or her) fault!”
Can Couples Therapy Help? Research studies began to confirm what I was seeing clinically. Dr. Don Baucom, from the University of North Carolina, is one of the most highly regarded marital therapy researchers in the United States. In fact, he’s conducted more couples therapy studies than any other living researcher. Dr. Baucom also reviews the results of all the studies on couples therapy that are published in scientific journals throughout the world and publishes reviews in scholarly journals and textbooks. Every year he comes to the same startling conclusion: there is no truly effective form of marital therapy in the world at this time.* These findings aren’t limited to any particular type of therapy. It makes no difference whether your therapist emphasizes communication training, cognitive therapy, problem-solving training, venting your feelings, exploring the roots of your problems in your childhood experiences, boosting your self-esteem, or scheduling more loving and rewarding activities with your partner. None of these approaches, alone or in combination, seems to be especially effective. In other words, correcting the so-called deficits that seem to cause relationship problems will not reliably lead to satisfying, loving relationships. * Epstein, N. B., & Baucom, D. (2002). Enhanced Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy for Couples: A Contextual Approach. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association. 14
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That doesn’t mean that no one can be helped with these treatment methods. In most studies, roughly 50 percent of the couples report some improvement in the short term, but that’s not an impressive success rate. A fair number of them would have improved without treatment, either because of their own efforts or simply because of the passage of time. The long-term results are even less encouraging. Many of the couples who initially report some improvement eventually end up in separation or divorce. There’s definitely something missing—something important. We’re just not hitting any home runs when it comes to treating people with troubled relationships. Most marital therapists will privately acknowledge that what I’m saying rings true. They’re painfully aware that many troubled couples, as well as angry individuals who can’t get along with others, are tremendously resistant to change and almost impossible to treat. Negative research studies can be unsettling because they indicate that our treatment methods aren’t nearly as effective as we’d hoped, and that our theories may not be valid, either. At the same time, negative studies can be exciting because they mean that we’ve probably been looking for the solutions in the wrong places and overlooking something tremendously important. If we simply listen to what our research studies and clinical experiences are trying to tell us, it can trigger new discoveries and lead to the development of far more effective treatment methods. When we fight, there’s no doubt that we do think about the person we’re at odds with in a negative, illogical, and self-defeating way, and we do get defensive and frustrated and make demands that drive the other person further away. But what if these distorted thinking patterns and dysfunctional behaviors are just the symptoms, and not the true causes, of conflict? After all, people with pneumonia cough like crazy, but coughing doesn’t cause pneumonia. And you can’t cure pneumonia by telling the patient to stop the coughing. You have to kill the bacteria that have invaded the lungs.
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Chapter 2
The Dark Side of Human Nature
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lthough experts have different theories about the causes of relationship problems, they all seem to agree on one idea: human beings are inherently good. We all have strong needs for intimacy and deep, instinctual yearnings for loving, rewarding relationships with other people. So why, then, do we fight with each other so much? Is it because we lack the skills we need to develop loving relationships? That’s what nearly all the experts believe— that we want to be close, but just don’t know how. This idea is tremendously appealing because it allows us to think of our aggressive, destructive urges as thwarted desires for love. We’re all painfully aware of how much horrific violence and hostility there is in the world today, and how much there’s been throughout human history, so it’s comforting to think that human beings are inherently good. It’s not so much that we want to fight and hurt each other; it’s just that we don’t know a better way. If this theory were correct, there would be a simple solution to relationship problems. If we just developed healthier attitudes and more effective interpersonal skills, we’d all stop fighting and enjoy greater love and intimacy. But what if the experts are wrong? What if we aren’t simply inherently good, but have negative, deDAVID D. BURNS, MD
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structive motives as well? And what if these negative motives are just as basic to our nature, and just as powerful, as the positive, loving motives? If this were true, then our problems getting along with each other might result less from the fact that we don’t know how to love each other, and more from the fact that we don’t want to. Maybe we sometimes choose conflict and hostility because they seem far more appealing and desirable than getting close to the person we’re at odds with. Is it really possible that we’re secretly attracted to conflict and hostility?
A Look at the Dark Side of Human Nature Let’s do some research of our own and check it out. I’m going to tell you about Harry and Brenda, a couple with a troubled marriage. If we can figure out why they’re at odds, maybe we can learn something about the causes of troubled relationships in general. Brenda initially sought treatment with me because she was struggling with chronic feelings of depression and inadequacy. She was an intelligent young woman who completed two years of junior college in San Francisco after graduating from high school. She had a straight-A average and an interest in biology. One of her teachers encouraged her to complete her undergraduate degree and go on to graduate school in veterinary medicine because of her intense love for animals. However, Brenda didn’t have a great deal of self-confidence and didn’t know if she could cut it at the university level. In addition, she didn’t want to ask her parents for any more financial support, so she went to work as a receptionist for a dentist in Chicago instead. About that time, Brenda and Harry began dating. Harry had begun working as a carpenter after graduating from high school five years earlier. He was ambitious and had started his own construction company. The day he started his company, he proposed to Brenda. She wasn’t sure that she was in love with Harry, but told herself that she could learn to love him over time. Shortly after they were married, Brenda got pregnant and deFEELING GOOD TOGETHER
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livered their first child, a boy they named Jack. Brenda returned to work because they needed both salaries to make ends meet. Two years later, they had a second child, a boy named Zachary. Although Brenda and Harry didn’t have the most dynamic or exciting relationship, things were more or less okay for the first five years of their marriage. Then things took a turn for the worse. During an argument about how to discipline their sons, Harry started shouting and called Brenda a stupid bitch, and he threatened that if she didn’t shut up, he’d let her have it. Brenda was devastated and humiliated. The next week it happened again. They started arguing and Harry suddenly launched into a tirade laced with insulting obscenities and told her to shut up. Before long, six more years had passed, and the same thing had been happening almost every week. Brenda felt depressed, ashamed, and deeply hurt. She thought about leaving Harry but was afraid that she could never make it on her own. She told herself that if she just hung in there, things would eventually get better. She was also concerned about Jack and Zachary, who were now eleven and eight years old. They were both starting to hang out with the wrong crowd, wouldn’t study, and were flunking several classes. Whenever Brenda asked them to do their homework or clean up their room, they made insulting comments and refused to do anything she asked. Harry and Brenda didn’t agree on what to do about Jack and Zachary. Harry told Brenda that the boys didn’t respect her because she was so insecure. But Harry never supported her efforts to discipline the children. In fact, he always watched and said nothing while they insulted their mother. Why does Harry berate Brenda? What motivates him? Why does Brenda put up with it? What motivates her? What triggers their fights? I saw some evidence for most of the deficit theories that we reviewed in chapter 1. Harry and Brenda don’t communicate very skillfully, and they don’t seem to know how to solve the problems that are plaguing them. Brenda suffers from low self-esteem, and they both grew up in dysfunctional families. Harry and Brenda are definitely experiencing marital burnout out as well. They al18
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most never do anything fun together and rarely treat each other in a kind or loving way. And when Brenda expresses her feelings, Harry insults her or tells her that she shouldn’t feel that way, so they both end up feeling frustrated. At this point, we might be tempted to conclude that if we could simply teach them how to communicate more skillfully, schedule more rewarding activities together, and resolve their childhood traumas, they’ll stop fighting and start loving each other. Before we jump to this conclusion, maybe we need to peek behind closed doors so we can examine what actually happens when Harry and Brenda fight. Here’s a typical example. It’s a Saturday morning, and Brenda is busy in the kitchen, baking a cake for Zachary’s birthday party. Harry walks in and enthusiastically explains that his best buddy, Bret, and his wife just bought an older home on the east side of town. They got a nice-sized fixerupper on a large lot for a really good price. Harry says that he and Brenda should go over and check it out later in the day because there are other homes for sale in the same neighborhood. They’ve been talking about moving out of their apartment and buying a house for some time, and he seems excited. Brenda is less than enthusiastic. She interrupts him and points out that anyone familiar with real estate knows that property values on the east side are plummeting because of all the prostitutes and drug dealers who hang out in that area. She says that buying property on the east side is like flushing your money down the toilet, and that anyone with half a brain would know that. Harry gets flustered and tries again. He suggests that they could at least visit Bret and his wife later in the day and check out the neighborhood. He explains that Bret told him that the police have been cracking down on crime, and the area is a lot nicer than Brenda thinks. In fact, Bret said it was an up-and-coming neighborhood with a tremendous potential for appreciation. Brenda points out that the politicians have been promising to clean up the east side of town for years, but everyone knows that it’s never going to happen. Harry protests, but Brenda shoots him down every time he tries to speak. Why is Brenda doing this? She feels tired, resentful, and huFEELING GOOD TOGETHER
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miliated because of the way Harry has been treating her for years. Physically, she’s no match for Harry, but she’s a lot brighter, so she uses her mind as a weapon. This is her way of fighting back. She’s not consciously aware that she’s putting him down, and she’s not intentionally provoking him. It happens automatically. The longer they argue, the more frustrated Harry gets. The veins on his neck begin to bulge and suddenly he boils over. He starts shouting and tells Brenda to shut up. Suddenly, there’s no more arguing. In fact, there’s hardly any communication until the next week, when the same thing happens again. Now how will we understand the problems that plague Harry and Brenda? Although their problems seem devastating, the popular theories about relationship problems might allow us to cast their difficulties in a more positive, optimistic light. For example, we could argue that although Harry treats Brenda shabbily, he does it because of his unsatisfied needs for intimacy. He wants Brenda to listen and admire him, but he simply doesn’t have the proper tools to bring this result about. In other words, his aggression might simply be the result of his frustrated desires for love and respect. That’s why he treats her in such a mean-spirited manner. He puts her down and threatens her because he just can’t think of any other way to get his point across. Brenda uses her intelligence as a weapon, and Harry fights back with threats and obscenities. In other words, underneath all this aggression, they both just want to feel close to each other. And if we give them some communication training, help them develop more positive attitudes, and encourage them to schedule more fun activities together, the hostilities will disappear and they’ll enjoy the love and respect that they’ve always wanted. Do you buy this analysis? It’s certainly an optimistic way of thinking about a difficult situation. Let’s look at another scenario before we decide. One Saturday night, Harry invited several of his buddies over for beer and poker. Brenda was relegated to the role of waitress, bringing them chips and beer while they got more and more drunk. She didn’t hear a whole lot of thank yous—mainly just demands for more beer. Harry was clearly the ringleader. When
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Brenda was in the kitchen, she overheard them complaining about what bitches women are and boasting about how they have to put their wives in their place from time to time, sometimes with a little persuasion from their fists. They were all laughing and seemed to be having a wonderful time. Now how are we going to think about the problems that Harry and Brenda are experiencing? Is it possible that Harry actually enjoys intimidating his wife? Maybe the fighting turns him on and makes him feel like a winner. Maybe his needs for power and control are greater than his desires for intimacy and tenderness. Maybe he likes to intimidate Brenda. These negative rewards may be more desirable to Harry than the rewards of mutual love and respect. His troubled marriage may actually be a great source of excitement and self-esteem. In fact, we’re the ones who are labeling his relationship with Brenda as a “problem.” Of course, if you asked Harry about this, he’d deny having any negative motives and insist that he doesn’t really enjoy humiliating his wife. He’d tell you that he’s the victim and that the problems in their marriage are all Brenda’s fault. As far as he’s concerned, she gets exactly what she deserves. Brenda makes him so mad that he flies off the handle and can’t control himself. She provokes him with her complaining, and he just starts shouting before he realizes what’s happening. In fact, that’s essentially what Harry did say. After Brenda and I met for several sessions, I asked if she was interested in couples therapy. She said it sounded wonderful but doubted that Harry would be interested. She asked if I’d be willing to call and invite him to join us, because she was afraid of what might happen if she asked him. Her prediction was accurate. Harry told me that he had no interest in therapy and thought his marriage was fine. He said he didn’t really believe in “shrinks,” or all that touchy-feely communication training, but realized that his wife had problems and hoped I could fix her. He didn’t seem at all concerned about the hostilities in his marriage and he definitely wasn’t interested in developing a more
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loving relationship with his wife. He was perfectly happy to maintain the status quo. You may be thinking, “But I’m not like Harry.” You may see him as a crude guy who’s somehow different from the rest of us. That’s a comforting way to look at it, because then we won’t have to think about any evil or hostile motives that might be hiding inside us. But what if Harry and Brenda aren’t really so different? What if there’s a little bit of Harry and Brenda in all of us?
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Feeling Good Together
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